STARKVILLE — “Thirty-two forever.”
Those words proved to be the rallying cry the Starkville High School girls soccer team needed Friday night to earn its biggest victory of the season.
Buoyed by two goals by Noa Hardin and another by Carolina Berryhill, Starkville used the memory of their former classmate, Devin Mitchell, as motivation in a 3-0 victory against New Hope that clinched the Class 5A, District 3 title.
The victory means Starkville (10-4-1) will be the district’s top seed in the Class 5A North State playoffs and will play host to an opponent to be determined at a time to be determined Tuesday.
The Starkville High boys also wrapped up a district title Friday night with a 5-0 victory.
Taylor Wise, Price Day, Kase Kingery, Justin Gordon, and Addison Watson scored goals for the Yellow Jackets on Senior Night for both teams. Nathaniel Houston and J.R. Tomlinson added assists on the final goal.
Senior girls Christine Mazzolla, Jennifer Henderson, Ashley Albritton, and Resheada Doss and senior boys Tomlinson, Marvin Hughes, Day, Watson, Lewis Maynard, Austin Wileman, Justin Gandy, and Kingery were honored in a ceremony between games.
In the girls game, Starkville struck for two goals in the first 16 minutes to seize control. On Wednesday, New Hope fell behind Starkville 1-0 in the first meeting in Columbus. The Lady Trojans rallied thanks to goals by Effie Morrison and Sam Vogel to hold the upper hand entering Friday’s match. A win or tie would have helped New Hope (11-4-3) secure the district title.
This time, though the Lady Jackets made sure a rally wasn’t going to materialize.
New Hope coach Mary Nagy said her team wasn’t able to recover after surrendering the first two goals. Hardin’s goal with more than 25 minutes to play removed any doubt and helped seal Starkville’s district title based on goal differential, providing New Hope wins today against Neshoba Central.
“We just didn’t recover,” Nagy said. “I don’t know if it was a lack of focus or a bundle of nerves. But the first two goals kind of shook us up. We fell behind by two quick and we kind of got in panic mode. We couldn’t get our system going and it was rush, rush, rush.”
Albritton said the Lady Yellow Jackets reviewed the film from the game Wednesday night and didn’t change anything. She said the team was more focused and used the memory of Mitchell, the former Starkville High football player who was shot and killed earlier this month in West Point, as a rallying cry and motivation to protect their home field.
“We had some breakdowns on defense (in the first game against New Hope),” Albritton said. “We sat down and talked about it, and a lot of the things we did were in the heat of the moment. We just weren’t focused. We left the middle open on Wednesday. We didn’t give them the middle tonight.”
Albritton didn’t think Starkville played that badly in the first meeting. She felt the team had the better of the possession only to allow one goal off a rebound after a goalkeeper save.
For Nagy, the effort didn’t resemble the one she saw Wednesday after more than a week’s layoff. She said the Lady Trojans got caught up in looking at the clock and worrying about trying to score too quickly to get back into the game. She said the team didn’t communicate like it needed to to offset Starkville’s focus and emotion.
“I don’t know,” Nagy said when asked how she feels her team will bounce back. “There were a lot of tears (after the game), and I told them the season is not over. We said we had to win six games to get to where we need to be. Now we have hit a bump in the road and we have an extra road we have to take to get where we want to be.”
In the boys game, Starkville (10-3) built a 3-0 halftime lead and cruised. The victory capped a busy week in which Starkville beat New Hope 8-0 Wednesday and Neshoba Central 5-0 Thursday. The game Friday was only Starkville’s second at home this season and helped wrap up an opportunity to play another, bigger one Tuesday.
“Finally everybody is starting to get better and to jell as a unit,” Starkville coach Brian Bennett said. “We were looking like we didn’t know each other for a while, even though it has been pretty much the same team for three years. If there a time you want them to be jelling you want it to be now.”
Bennett said the weather and long layoffs coupled with injuries prevented the team from finding its stride until now. He hopes the fact his team will play at home in the first round against Center Hill will help it move on.
New Hope (6-9-2) will have to beat Neshoba Central by two goals to claim the runner-up spot in the district and keep its season alive. Neshoba Central holds the edge based on a 1-0 victory earlier in the season. Coach Brian Meggs said the first meeting against the Rockets was a close game that was decided in overtime. He hopes his team can gather its legs and have enough in the tank to deliver a strong effort at 3 p.m. today.
“We had a little bit of a letdown on some offensive pushes. I think that is what made the difference in the game,” Meggs said. “Usually late in the game our defense gets tired, and that is what happened (in the first game). That is how they snuck the goal in on us.”
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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